1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a technique for detecting blurring that has been produced in images as a result of camera shake.
2. Related Art
Digital still cameras have recently become popular, and the capacity of the memory cards used therein have been expanded. As a result, general users are storing greater amounts of images. Digital still cameras require no film and allow photographs to be taken more casually, often resulting in photographing with unintentional camera shake. As such, images are relatively often blurred due to camera shake, and attempts to print such images on a printing apparatus require normal images to be selected beforehand.
It is extremely cumbersome to have to select normal images from out of an abundance of images. A desirable technique would therefore automatically exclude blurred images from the images to be printed before the user prints the images. In relation to such a technique for detecting blurring, JP-A-2006-19874 discloses a technique for detecting whether or not there is any blurring in images based on bit map data in the digital still camera used to photograph the images.
However, since recent digital still cameras can photograph images with a high resolution of several millions to ten millions of pixels, the bit map data volume can be quite extensive. As a result, CPUs with a high processing capacity and greater memory volume are needed, resulting in greater manufacturing costs, in order to detect blurring based on bit map data in compact devices such as digital still cameras and printers.